Dolly Mapp

Two players in the Dolly Mapp saga went on to lead noteworthy lives.

First among them is Don (The Kid) King, whose house bombing started everything.

King served four years for manslaughter from 1967-70 after he beat to death on the streets of Cleveland a man who owed him money. His prison term was cut short when the Ohio governor pardoned him.

He dropped his nickname and reinvented himself as a Brillo-topped boxing promoter.

He rose to prominence in 1974, still fresh from prison, when he promoted the famous Rumble in the Jungle fight in Zaire between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali.

As the countrys first major black promoter, he has arranged fights for the most prominent heavyweight boxing champions of the past three decades, including Foreman, Larry Holmes, Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield.

Long ago, he adapted a signature catch phrase appropriate for somebody who has gone from Cleveland numbers racketeer to the top of the boxing world: Only in America!

The slogan might have been appropriate for Shondor Birns, as well.

The Hungarian immigrant managed a long career in the cutthroat rackets in Cleveland. But like so many others in that rough trade, his life was cut short.

In 1975, a Cleveland mobster named Danny Greene found an unexploded bomb under his car. He angrily told underworld associates that he would see to it that the bomb was returned to the old bastard who sent it.

A few weeks later, in April 1975, Shondor Birns was blown up by a car bomb. No one was ever charged in the murder.